Review: The subject of this article is the forms and methods of consolidation of public forces based on citizens’ pro-active attitude. This approach corresponds to the objectives of Russia’s strategic development and the task to overcome the state of underdevelopment of the formal channels of public activity mobilization that was outlined in the Final report on the results of the expertise on the current challenges of Russia’s social and economic strategy until 2020 known as Strategy-2020: New Growth Model – New Social Policy. The novelty of the study is in how the author formulates questions and discloses certain aspects of the social and political life of the Russian society, closely related to the youth demographics, characterization of the political mass conscience, evaluation of the class divide. The article is part of larger study focused on the current issues how to form a theoretical model for the politically active societal forces and to find corresponding models with innovative contents. The author methodologically rejects certain principles of the well-known concept of the civil society and uses the methods of critical analysis and hypothetical and didactic approach; the author then comes to the conclusion that the study of current forms of public activity enables him to confirm the sustainability of the top-down approach of state governance subjects to initiation of civil activity within the constraints of scarce state financing and grants from multiple funding sources. The novelty of this analysis lies in the presentation of civil public service model that is related to potential opportunities for capacity building of civil initiatives through the creation of centers for the citizens’ civil and political activities, including those based on social and economic assets of joint stock companies (employee-owned enterprises) with development of the civil duty relations on the level of local governance. A civil society organization that has its own social and material base corresponds to a greater degree to the principles of society’s independence from the state structures and enhancement of links between the sovereign nation and the state.

Review: The subject of this research is the journal “Zhivaya Zhizn” (1907-1908), the specialty and content of which has not previously been systematized in the context of participation of its publishers in the church reforms movement of the Russian Orthodox Church in the early XX century. The work examines the reason of emergence of the journal, carries out a detailed review of its most important articles of Christian socialists V. P. Sventsinsky and V. F. Ern who published the journal along with S. N. Bulgakov and filled it with the articles by members of the Christian Brotherhood of Struggle. The author studies the social value of the journal, as well as analyzes the history of its publishing and reformist direction of the articles within the framework of succession of five publishers of the early XX century of the religious-reformist orientation (“Novyi Put”, “Voprosy Zhizni”, “Vek”, “Narod”). The author demonstrates that despite the declaration of opposition to “Neo-Christians”, the journal “Zhivaya Zhizn” carried out its part of the task among publishers that presented themselves as publishing bodies of the free religious thought. Namely in these periodicals of pre-revolutionary Russia, the ideology and philosophy of the “new religious consciousness”, social Christianity, and Church “liberation”, were the subject of the open discussion. This research shows that the journal “Zhivaya Zhizn” serves as the source for accumulation of facts that during the period of 1907-1908 the ideology of its publisher Christian Brotherhood of Struggle, despite the claimed opposition to “Neo-Christianity”, was in line with the religious reformism evolved in the early XX century in Russia.

Review: The authors thoroughly examine the Komsomol patronage over the Pioneers under the conditions of Khrushchev Thaw. The source basis of the article contains the archive documents, primarily the documents from the Russian State Archive of Sociopolitical History and State Archive of Sociopolitical History of Tambov Oblast. The originally introduced into the scientific discourse documents of the lower-level Pioneer and Komsomol organizations allowed adjusting multiple conclusions of the documents of the higher-level authorities, as well as eliminate the stereotypes established within the historical science. Komsomol is viewed as a certain Soviet “ministry of youth”, interlink between the government, youth, and children. The experience of Komsomol activity and Pioneer organization is being evaluated from human and state perspective. Summarizing the patronage Komsomol activity at the brink of the 1950’s –1960’s the authors determine the increase of its efficiency; there was an active search for the most efficient forms and methods of working with various age groups of Pioneers. At the same time, the success of any initiative completely depended on the subjective factor: wherever there were people capable (not just enthusiastic) to carry out difficult and important tasks, the children living in these towns received an opportunity to not just pass time, but to also acquire rather useful communication skills, and were becoming involved in socially beneficial projects.

Review: The subject of this research is the role of public organizations in formation of the language policy of the following cantons of Switzerland – Fribourg, Valais, and Graubünden. The multilingualism of the said cantons is officially codified in their constitutions and legislations; however, de facto the equality of rights among the language groups of the populations took some time to establish. It is assumed that such public organizations as “The Society of German Catholics” of Fribourg, “The Roman League” of Graubünden, etc. working with the language minorities, have affected the development of the language law and policy within the cantons. This article recites the data from the Swiss and international researches on the stated topic since the end of the XIX century until today. The work of these organizations resulted in the development of the indigenous identity among the language minorities, as well as in the consolidation of their efforts. By means of public campaigns, the organizations were attempting to attain the equality of language rights, as well as referendums on the introduction of changes into the language legislation.

Review: In order to determine the organizational-theoretical foundations of the unification of the youth movement in Soviet Russia, the author meticulously studied the materials from the congresses and conferences of the Communist Party and Komsomol, legislative acts of the USSR and the RSFSR, speeches of the party and Komsomol leaders, as well as the edicts of the plenums of the Central Committees of the Russian Communist Party and the All-Union Communist Party. Based on the documents mostly kept in the Russian state archive of socio-political history and achievements of modern Russian historiography, the author presents the historical-legal research that demonstrates the key factors of the formation of monopoly of the Communist youth union. A special attention is given to the theoretical foundations of the correlation between Komsomol and Scouts, cultural-educational and religious youth unions, as well as the Russian social-democratic union of working youth. The author discovers the prerequisites of extrusion of rustic and student alternatives to Komsomol from the Russia’s youth movement.

Review: The subject of this research is the international consulting activity of the non-governmental organizations (NGO). The main access of NGO to the international arena is the cooperation with the international governmental organizations. This cooperation is formally established with attainment of the consultative status (as the United Nations Economic and Social Council of the UN) or other official status. NGOs that operate on the international arena represent a particular group of organizations; they are identified by specific relationship with the government. In turn, the government adheres to a certain vector with such NGOs. This article reviews precisely the Russian NGOs, which conduct an international consulting activity; it based on the results of the sociological research via the method of expert interviews. The research was conducted in the spring of 2015; overall, 12 experts, representing the Russian NGOs or the government authorities that cooperate with these NGOs, participated in the survey. The scientific novelty consists in the examination of a particular group of NGOs that revolve in the international consulting field. The author’s main conclusion is that the Russian government structures collaborate with the Russian NGOs by following the general line, which can be describes as the line of resource support. There are two strategies characteristic to the Russian NGOs with regards to the government authorities: the strategy of active cooperation, and the strategy of limited cooperation.

Review: The subject of the research in the present article are the specific characteristics of the functioning of Russian and Bolivian trade unions, the factor of evolution of their strategies and tactics, the reasons of the development of oppositional trade union movement in these countries. Independent trade union movement in modern Russia is in its infancy, and faces some problems, which justifies the importance of studying the experience of trade union movement in other countries. The main problems, the solution of which now defines the efficiency of a trade union as a social institution, are as follows: the formation of a "flexible" labour market, enlargement of transnational corporation that require the elaboration of new strategies of the social protection of the workers. The work is based on systems and social-cultural approaches, the author has used the method of comparative (cross-national) analysis, as well as the traditional analysis of documents. The criteria of comparison considered in the present work are the strategy and tactics of the trade unions, the structure of the trade union movement, the trade unions' attitude to the economic reforms in the country and key social issues of the studies period. The article considers the trends of the evolution of the trade union movement in the two countries. The author draws a conclusion regarding the common specific features in the development of the trade union movement in Russia and Bolivia at a certain stage (1990s), caused by the social-economic likelihood of the two countries. Among such specific features there are orientation on short-term radical goals and criticism of neoliberal policy. In the following period (2000s) the political mobilisation of the Russian trade unions decreases, the level of the popular trust reduces, while the Bolivian trade unions are still one of the most active actors of the political process in the country.

Review: The article considers the question of participation of the Prisons Custody Society in the process of correction of the convicted persons. The author characterises the major fields of concern of the Society which laid the foundation for the formation of the institution of public control over the reinforcement of rights of persons residing in the places of forced imprisonment; penitentiary medicine; organisation of education and labour in detention places; penitentiary legislation, etc. The Society actively engaged in implementing various innovations: 1) prison premises were subject to reconstruction: big windows were installed in order to provide larger fresh air intake in cells and corridors, the cell doors were furnished with small folding windows, pavements were laid in the prison yards; 2) the members of the Soceity themselves accomodated the prisoners by their age, type of crime and degree of culpability; 3) works were organised for the prisoners: workshops on cardboard craft, binding, woodwork, etc. were launched; 4) churches were built in prisons, equipped with praying rooms; 5) special uniform was introduced for the prisoners to facilitate their recognition in case of prison break; 6) asylums for prisoners' children were organised. The Prisons Custody Society at the time played a significant role in establishment and further development of the institution of peer pressure as a means of correction of convicted persons.

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